Category Archives: Business

Happy Wednesday lovely people, hope your week is going well. So today, I would give you tips on how to save money.

Plan out your spending: know what you spend most money on set your priorities so you don’t waste money on unnecessary things.
Make your own gifts: Diying things will save you a ton of money because you can spend as little as £5 in making it instead of spending £30 in purchasing it and the person you give will appreciate it because you put so much time and effort.
Write a list before going shopping: this will help you to purchase only necessary things.
Learn to repair: there are some things that just need repairing instead of wasting money replacing it, you can just repair and save yourself some money.
Stay healthy: this will help you spend less in hospital bills, cigarettes, drugs,medications and probably insurance.
Cut down on electricity usage: turn off the lights, turn off the tv and go outside to read and enjoy nature or you can go for a walk.
Compare prices: walk around the mall and compare the prices of certain commodities so you can get it for the best possible price in order to save money.
Cook: to be honest, we waste our money on fast food when we can just buy the ingredients to cook good food and we can re use the ingredients over and over again.
Sign up for freebies: who doesn’t love free things?
And finally, have a savings account: this is pretty self explanatory

We all have our imperfections and that makes us individuals and beautiful in our own ways. The world would be extremely boring and wierd if we all looked alike and did the same things. Don’t try to copy others because everyone is uniquely and wonderfully created trying to copy others will disrupt your future and God’s purpose for creating you. Don’t feel insecure about your imperfections because that’s the way you are created. Let us encourage diversity and learn to embrace our imperfections. Let our motto for this week be I LOVE AND ACCEPT MY IMPERFECTIONS and remember that imperfections makes you who you are.

The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question, “What are some tips for maintaining a successful startup?” is written by Neil Powell, co-founder of Mugnacious.

I realized, and sadly not very long ago, that my ability to predict my future is not so good. In fact, I’m embarrassed by how often I’ve been wrong. I’m not talking about thinking or preparing a bit for what might lie ahead either. That’s what a good business person does. I mean habitually trying to predict what will happen to you and your business in the future. I’ve spent God knows how many of my precious little life hours obsessing about all kinds of ways things could play out for me and my small business.

The senseless string of questions, worry and doubt:

What if no one calls me for projects next month, even when I’ve had a banner year thus far?

What if that art sale doesn’t happen?

What if they change their mind?Then what would I say?

What if …

And while all this fortune telling was going on in my head, I was never really paying attention to the now part of my business — remembering or noticing all the little signs that life presents to you over and over during the course of a day, a week, a month or a year.

Because while I was racking my brain trying to calculate all the things a client might say during drinks Friday, life had been driving a big dumb clown car down Happy Street passing out new opportunities. But I couldn’t see any of this. I was always so fixated on the future. By trying to predict my future, I would inadvertently make decisions based on fantasy. Most of which played to the conservative side of things and led to predictable behavior. Offering up only opportunities that led to more of the kind of work I wanted to move away from in the first place.

It wasn’t until just last year that I started to change. Career-wise, I was at a crossroads of sorts. I worked as both an artist and an interior designer. Just when revenues from my two roles were starting to even out, I started getting more fine arts projects.

In the past, I would have resisted turning too much of my attention toward my art and away from design. After all, it was the design channel of revenue that was allowing me the freedom to pursue art. But now, I was starting to give in to the fact that people love my art, and when I really focus on it, it flourishes.

Now I was turning my attention away from trying to predict my business’s future and turning it toward spending more time nurturing to what I really want my business to be — a magical place of making and wonder.

In March I decided to make a bold move. I opened a workshop and show space in Brooklyn and it’s given a whole new life to my small business. It was a decision that has transformed the way I work and approach my business. Admittedly, I was a tiny bit scared but nonetheless excited.

I feel reborn as an entrepreneur. All because I stopped trying to predict the future and started to take notice of now.

Rumor has it that Apple is about to update the MacBook Pro with a retina display in the coming months. And according to well-informed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities and 9to5mac, it should be much more than a specification bump.

The company wants to keep two screen sizes with a 13-inch model and a somewhat more powerful 15-inch model. But these laptops should come in a thinner and lighter design, bringing it closer to the MacBook Air.

But if you have a MacBook Pro, you know that the laptop’s thickness is constrained by the ports. The retina MacBook Pro is roughly as thick as a USB port, or a Thunderbolt port, or an HDMI port — these three types of ports are more or less the same thickness.

So how is Apple going to solve that? The answer is USB-C. Apple is already using this thinner USB standard in the 12-inch MacBook with a retina display. And it looks like the company doesn’t want to stop there. USB ports are probably going to become USB-C ports. But you can also make Thunderbolt-compatible USB-C ports, so Apple could also switch to USB-C design for Thunderbolt ports. Similarly, Apple could take advantage of a USB-C port to drop the MagSafe connector. Finally, Apple could drop the HDMI port or replace it with a Mini-HDMI port.

According to these reports, Apple is also thinking about adding a Touch ID sensor right on your Mac. It’s nice that you won’t have to type your password again. But it could also open other possibilities, such as Apple Pay on the Mac for online purchases.

The last addition is a bit more surprising. Apple could be adding a tiny OLED touchscreen above your keyboard thanks a new, smaller metal-injection molded hinge. While Apple has never made laptops with touchscreens, this narrow touch screen would feature shortcuts and could change depending on the app you’re using. This could be the most surprising element of the new MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook Pro will feature the new Intel Skylake processors. It could also feature a redesigned keyboard that would look like the Magic Keyboard.

Unfortunately, today’s reports say that you shouldn’t expect to buy a new MacBook Pro before Q4 of 2016. Many anticipated a big announcement at Apple’s WWDC, but it looks like it won’t be ready just yet.

Next month, the world could get its first national basic income, but the likelihood of it passing remains a long shot.

The Swiss will vote on June 5 whether to institute an unconditional basic income that will take the place of some welfare benefits. The concept of basic income is a hot topic nowadays as the world considers a future with less work, but Switzerland will be the first country to actually vote on it.

Proponents of the stipend say that it will give all Swiss a decent living and allow them to “participate in public life.” The text of the referendum doesn’t specify how much each citizen will receive, but advocates have suggested 2,500 francs or $2,500 for adults and 625 francs for kids per month.

Opponents of measure–including the Swiss government-argue that an automatic income is a disincentive to work and will increase taxes. The government also says the stipend could hamper the Swiss economy by causing a shortage in skilled workers, prompting businesses to relocate abroad. Plus, the suggested $2,500 per month stipend adds up to an annual sum that’s just barely above the national poverty line, according to Bloomberg. Those arguments seem to have resonated with voters. A poll conducted in April showed that just 24% of voters supported it; 4% remained undecided.

But even if the Swiss reject the measure, the idea of basic income is likely to remain a timely talking point, as world leaders grapple with wealth inequality and concerns that machines could someday displace a vast share of workers.

Lausanne, Switzerland made the news last month when its city council narrowly passed a motion calling for a city-wide basic income trial program. Other governments–namely those of Ontario in Canada, Finland, and the Netherlands–have also toyed with the idea of giving their citizens free money to cover basic needs. And some players in Silicon Valley are also infatuated. Y Combinator president Sam Altman said in January that the startup incubator wanted to fund a study of the idea.

At least one basic income acolyte says Switzerland is an ideal testing ground for the concept given its wealth. (It’s typically ranked among nations with the highest per capita GDP.) Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told Bloomberg that, “A rich country like Switzerland has the great opportunity to try out this great experiment.”

Why Sports Authority Is Likely to Close All 463 Stores

It’s almost certainly the end of The SportsAuthority’s road. In March, the debt-laden retailer filed for Chapter 11 protection in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, saying that it would close about 140 of its 463 stores. But last week, The Sports Authority gave up hope it could re-organize under bankruptcy protection, opting instead to auction itself off for whatever it can get.

The company “will not be able to reorganize under a plan, but will instead pursue a sale,” a lawyer for Sports Authority said at a hearing last week. So the company is offering up almost all of its assets at a court supervised auction on May 16. Contrary to many media reports this weekend, The Sports Authority has not yet said whether it will shutter its entire fleet of stores.

The erosion of Sports Authority has been so deep that its financial adviser, FTI Consulting Inc., told a bankruptcy court judge last week that existing takeover offers were barely enough to cover its $100 million in administrative and liquidation costs, according to Bloomberg News. That’s a far cry from the $1.1 billion Sports Authority owes creditors.

A number of parties, including rival Dick’s Sporting Goods have expressed interested in buying some stores, but no one has stepped up yet to buy the retailer in its entirety while maintaining the brand.

At best, it looks as though some Sports Authority locations could live on but under a different banner. (Switching from a Chapter 11 re-organization to a liquidation is usually the kiss of death in retail: the Borders bookstore chain tried to reorganize but ultimately put itself up for sale and found buyers, including Barnes & Noble, for pieces of its chain.)

Hard as it is to believe, a decade ago Dick’s and Sports Authority were about even in size, each with annual sales of about $3 billion. But in the years since, Dick’s has pulled way ahead, thanks to better in-store presentation and tech in stores.
Adding to the pressure, sporting goods retailers in general are having a lot more trouble competing with the Amazon’s of the world, meaning consolidation and an overall reduction of stores is in the offing. Two weeks ago, Vestis Retail Group, the operator of the Eastern Mountain Sports, said it would wind down its Sport Chalet retail chain as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing, the better to focus on saving Eastern Mountain. (Vestis also had said that Sports Authority’s closing out sales were hurting its business.)

Even Dick’s Sporting Goods, the best in class, has hit a rough patch: comparable sales at its namesake chain fell 2.5% during the holiday quarter. And Cabela’s is up for the sale. So the disappearance of Sports Authority is probably just the unwinding of over-expansion over the last ten years, with the weakest being killed off.

Some Sports Authority aficionados might hope that company ends up like Radio Shack, which went bankrupt last year but lives on as a much smaller chain of 1,700 stores, the struggles and overabundance of sporting goods stores means it will be hard for Sports Authority to live on as a physical retailer.

But Sports Authority fans might find solace in this: some retailers, namely Sharper Image and Linens N Things, have come back from the dead as online-only brands. Better than nothing.

General Motors gm on Thursday reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings, citing strong results in North America and an improved performance in Europe. The automaker’s shares were up 3.5% at $33.30 in premarket trading after rising as high as $33.68. That is still only just above their 2010 initial public offering price of $33, despite three straight…Read more on Fortune